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Are games a storytelling medium?

Thumbing through a recent copy of Edge magazine yesterday, I stumbled upon an opinion column by veteran games developer Tadhg Kelly proclaiming "games are not a storytelling medium".

Kelly uses the example of LA Noire to question the "conventional wisdom about the extension of narrative".

"The story supposes that the player is a hero, that he is engaged in a tale of his own making, and that because the experience is interactive it is better than linear stories (which are characterised as passive)."

I have no argument with Kelly that LA Noire is telling a story that is anything else but the yarn that Team Bondi wanted to spin, and that their story is constantly at odds with the actions that players choose in the game.

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Then Kelly goes on to say that even in games like Ico, Portal 2 and Uncharted 2 the details of the story, the structure and drama do not matter.

This seems harder to swallow, given the stories in the games he has quoted matter a hell of a lot to millions of devoted players.

But then Kelly finishes his piece with a call-out to his game development colleagues that I can readily embrace.

"You're making places where people go to do amazing things. Why get in the way of that?"

If Kelly is suggesting that the emergent, unique stories that players craft themselves are ultimately more interested than anything a writer can dream up, we are certainly in agreement.

As I have shared with game design students in the past, what makes games such a powerful medium is that they allow us incredible freedom to shape our own stories, stories that resonate and are far more interesting because they are personal and absolutely unique.

But that does not mean that games are not a storytelling medium. On the contrary, games could become the most powerful storytelling medium of them all.

8 comments so far

Of course games can be a story telling medium. It all comes down to want you want from your gaming experience. Some people want deep, engrossing storylines that immerse you into the game and give you a sense that you are the main character and some people just want to race cars, shoot stuff or just cruise around an open world checking out the sights - while racing cars and shooting stuff. Puzzle games are a perfect example of fantastic gameplay that in no way requires a lengthy back story or cut scenes, then you can go all the way to the other end of the spectrum with the Metal Gear games that sometimes feel more like a film than a form of interactive media.

Commenter

Dr Charlesworth

Location

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 8:06AM

Depends what Im after at the time.

Its fantastic that our medium caters to the many varied ways people wish to engage with the games they play.

You have your narrative set, linear games along side your sims & god games along side your open world make your own quest games.

For all the praise Mass Effect has recieved as a series, its not a truly open game. You still have the very rigid narrative of the first Human Spectre in his/her struggle to warn & save the galaxy about & from the reapers. The only real choice you have is whether said crusader is a a dick or a saint.

Commenter

Darryn

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 8:46AM

I have very strong feelings about videos games vastly untapped potential as a medium. Now is the most crucial time for the gaming industry to exercise its creative worth, with games making more money then ever they need to be seen as more then just a time sink to the mainstream populous, more then just a Battlefield and Call Of Duty X game, and something that can be seen as a expression of humanity.

Hopefully the indie scene can fill that void but it would be extremely helpful if larger publishers were able to push the envelope once in a while.

I believe gaming's greatest stories are yet to be told as we are still learning how to tell them.

Commenter

Matthew Barton

Location

Running with the Devil.

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 8:52AM

The issue with games is that if they try to include a story, it has to fit around the other things that make a game work. This is precisely my problem with the Deus Ex boss battles: in making room for the story, Eidos pushed gameplay out of the way. This is NOT the way to work a compelling story into your game.

Mass Effect has basically become my go-to game to illustrate how well story can work in games. In Mass Effect, the story is part of the game, and the game wouldn't work without the story. Gameplay elements and plot elements are intricately woven together like a fine fabric - the strands cannot be separated.

Just because most games tell stories badly (or tell bad stories) doesn't mean the medium is incapable of quality storytelling. Even a military shooter can tell a story well, as Modern Warfare 1 proved. That was not a very original story, by any means, but it was told incredibly well.

At their best, game stories make the gameplay _mean_ something. They give you a compelling reason to be doing whatever it is you're doing. Shadow of the Colossus would not have been half so emotionally affecting without its tragic story - you knew _why_ you were taking on these seemingly unstoppable monsters, and it gave the whole thing a sense of importance.

tl;dr version: Crap. The best games today merge story and gameplay seamlessly, and the medium at its best is an amazing channel for storytelling.

Commenter

DexX

Location

Nose and grindstone are in alignment

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 9:33AM

This is a good companion piece to Dexx's article today. Deus Ex comes so close to emergent story telling and gameplay (there is so, so much stuff you can only pick up on by looking at the small details), but ruins it with a couple of terrible cut-scenes.

I still hold high hopes though.

Commenter

Thom

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 9:48AM

Agree on the concept of unique, emergent personal stories.

As DexX points out, Mass Effect is a near perfect example, the game is defined by you experiencing and shaping the story with your actions. More notable though is how individual gamers - who may have shared many elements of your experience - view those experiences themselves. Grab ten different gamers who let the council die, and you'll get many different versions of how they, and therefore their Shep, view and justify this decision. Grab twenty players and ask them how they view their Shep's relationship with the two Cerberus lackeys, and you'll get twenty different versions of it.

Commenter

Pylades

Location

Pounced on by a Quarian.

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 11:29AM

The importance of story in a game depends heavily on the game.

At one end of the scale, there are games like fighting games or old-school shoot-em-ups, where the story, if it exists at all, is entirely incidental. Who cares about the plot for R-Type of Street Fighter?

Somewhere in the middle you have those games where the story provides a framework, a context for a game, to lend meaning to tasks which while individually enjoyable are somewhat pointless in isolation. Many RPGs fit this category; certainly most action RPGs (and most modern shooters) do. Bioshock with no narrative would still be interesting, but not AS interesting.

At the other end of the scale you have a small number of games that are entirely shaped by the narrative. I would venture that most "adventure games" are like this. These are the games where removing the story removes the heart of the game.

Without the context of the story, the "amazing things" that you can do are rendered without meaning.

Saying "games don't need story" is ignoring those games where story supplements or focuses the game. It's like saying "Land War in Asia is a great idea - look at Genghis Khan" while ignoring the small counter-examples of Napoleon and Hitler (and to some extent, Alexander).

Commenter

Ronny

Location

Tellus

Date and time

August 31, 2011, 1:36PM

What rubbish! "games are not a storytelling medium" thats a pretty big call when a toilet cubical with stuff written on it and inteprative dance are storytelling mediums.

"games are not a GOOD telling medium" perhaps although being a single player by choice i pick a game with a story 9 times out of 10 so they have to be doing something right